The Monster

I

Beloved, certainly you're not

What Veuillot calls a "tenderling."

Bubbling in you, as in a pot,

Dice, lust and revel have their fling.

My dear old child, you're surely not

Too fresh these days. However, dear, 

Your tireless game of fast-and-loose 

Has given you that smooth veneer, 

That things acquire from constant use. 

It has its charms, however dear.

I do not find it growing stale — 

That sap your forty summers bring 

Since autumn fruits with me prevail 

Over the banal flowers of spring. 

No! you are never dull nor stale.

Your carcase for your age atones, 

And gives particular delight 

In hollows of your collar bones, 

And other places out of sight.

Your carcase certainly atones.

A fig for those poor doting fools

Who're melon-struck and pumpkin mad,

Since I prefer your clavicules

To those King Solomon once had.

A fig for such poor doting fools!

A blue-black helmet is your hair. 

It shades your warrior's brow whereon 

Both thoughts and blushes are so rare — 

And then sweeps backward, and is gone! 

A blue black helmet is your hair.

Your eyes resemble mud and mire, 

Whereon a flaring lantern streaks, 

Reflects the fard upon your checks, 

And glows with pale infernal fire. 

Your eyes are coloured like the mire.

By its voluptuous disdain 

Your bitter lip provokes our lust. 

It's Eden's apple once again, 

Half is attraction, half disgust, 

In its voluptuous disdain.

Your leg, so muscular and dry, 

Could climb volcanoes, never stop, 

And, spite of snow, and wind, and rain, 

Perform a cancan at the top. 

Your leg is muscular and dry.

Your burning skin is void of sweetness:

Like an old soldier's it appears.

To sweat it never had the weakness

More than your eyes could furnish tears.

And yet it has a kind of sweetness!

II

Fool! You are driving to the Devil. 

Willingly I would go with you 

If the momentum of your revel 

Did not exasperate me too. 

Fool! go, alone, then, to the Devil.

My hip, my lung, my hams, my thigh

Won't let me longer pay respects

(Although it often makes me sigh)

To that great Lord, as he expects.

It's very sad for ham and thigh

Oh most sincerely do I suffer 

Not to accompany your freaks; 

When he is flatulating sulphur 

To see you kiss him where he leaks. 

O most sincerely do I suffer!

I feel so devilish annoyed

No more to serve you as a socket,

You hellish torch! Infernal rocket!

And to declare my duty void;

I do feel devilish annoyed,

Since for a long, long time I love you 

Being so logical. My dream 

Was of all ill to skim the cream, 

Place no monstrosity above you 

And own you in that line supreme. 

Truly, old monster! yes, I love you.